Read For Your Health

Welcome to our new blog segment where we read something to better ourselves mentally, physically, emotionally, or spiritually. We will feature a book for our health every last Friday of the month.

This month I focused on the dreaded reality of break-ups. Don’t worry friends (or get your hopes up gentlemen) my husband and I are doing great. There is an old relationship, that’s been stuck in my brain. (Why things get stuck in my brain is another book for another day) I didn’t realize until recently, that when it ended, I swept it under the rug. It was so devastating I spent years pretending it didn’t happen.. I kept shoving it away, that is until it literally started to haunt my dreams What they say is true if you don’t deal with something, it will haunt you. It is no fun.

I finally realized that I needed to grieve that relationship so that I could move on (not to mention sleep at night). Though I have grieved a few relationships in my life, this one was hard to know how to deal with.

For example, I’ve grown up my whole life knowing on some level my mother was an epic fail. She’s never really been there. The loss of someone that was really never there to begin with… Does not feel as epic of loss as with one you trusted and in fallacy believed would never betray you. The grief surrounding losing my mom in no comparison as painful as losing this relationship has been. Crazy?!?! It is to me.

So I talked to some friends and they suggested this book. It’s called a Break-Up Because It’s Broken by Greg and Amiira Rutola-Behrendt . ” The best advice from this book is in the title. I did not find a lot of substance in it. I felt lost after reading it. So I went in search for more. I googled grieving a past relationship and I ran across this article

I read this article several times because it spoke to exactly what I was going through. The second time I read it, I read more about the author Jackie M. Johnson and discovered she wrote the book When the Breakup is Over and the Ice Cream Carton is Empty.

I bought it, rare occurrence when you run a book blog. It was amazing. It has a Christian principality behind it, but don’t let that scare you. It has some wisdom in it. I think anyone who suspects they might not have grieved a past broken relationship (an intimate one) you should really read this book. It doesn’t solve all your break-up problems but it gets you thinking in the right direction. I highly recommend it.

In the end, I learned though the “break up” happened a long time ago. I still had to go through the motions of grieving and letting go… like it had just happened, so I could focus on what’s most important in my life now… G-d and my Family. Which is a great time to tell you guys… My family will be growing in the next couple of months… We are going to be doing foster-care with hopes of adopting and we are so excited! I’m sure I’ll throw in a book about parenting one of these days. Back to the topic at hand,

Sometimes we don’t know what to do with the pieces after something is broken… but I say when in doubt… turn the pieces into a beautiful mosaic. Let it color the life you have now, because if the relationship did not work, that sucks, but there is a good reason that relationship existed. So don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. And don’t go chasing the baby either. People if it’s a break-up it’s broken. Pining for your ex will happen, but pursuing them again is the perfect example of insanity. The sun will shine again with someone even better… So say good ridden! (After you read these books!)

If you are going through a break-up. I’m sorry. Deal with it as soon as you can.If you want to share about what you are going through feel free. Though if you want to keep it private. Just contact us through our email and we will get back to you.